and they've done amazing things. they've done greening, they planted last month scores of trees in the neighborhood. they brought the community together around garage sales. they actually are holding a market that has not been really a good neighbor in the area accountable to the neighborhood, which is an amazing feat. all of this is done because they love their neighborhood. they are inspired by community. that's what brings them together. so, i want to call up linda and -- linda cook and patricia de font. (applause) >> now, they're both part of nay street neighbors. linda actually nominated the group, but i really think that they're worthy of coming together to be honored today. i want to thank you for your great service in the neighborhood and i look forward to working with you in all the years to come. >> thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >> john said almost everything i wanted to say. but i do want to thank

specifically mohammed nuru because he's been incredible. his toehold, everyone. francis and john avalos' office, without her nobody would know what we were doing because she helps us with all of our fliers and everything that we need to do. john has been tireless. he comes to my house on fridays at 5:30 for meetings. he's a great, great supervisor and a champion for our district. and we're excited about this year. we're going to put in a park. we're going to do safety initiatives. we're looking for grant money for more beautification. if anybody is interested in starting a neighborhood watch and getting involved, call me and i can help you get started. it's a great thing to know your neighbors, even the ones who are a pain in the neck. it's a great thing to know your neighbors. [laughter] (applause) >> i would just like to say thank you to all of our neighbors because we have lived in that neighborhood for 37 years and it's just been such a joy to meet people who live

right across the street and never knew what wonderful neighbors i had until we started the neighborhood watch group. so, i would strongly advise everyone to start a neighborhood watch group. it's great. and thanks to patricia, she's done an outstanding job and i'm so happy she took over as block captain for me. i appreciate it. thanks a lot. (applause) ♪ (applause) >> our next award is for the best community -- green community project. and i'd like to just sort of jump forward a little bit and

invite darlene zane to come up and give the award. here she comes. [cheering and applauding] >> hello, everyone. so, for years the portola and it's the portola, foster recognition. and, dan, things started happening. one of the things that gave attention to our neighborhood is when we decided we were going to have a new branch library. ruth wallace came up with the idea of a garden tour and a lot of us thought, a garden tour? our neighborhood? who is going to come? well, we had every -- we've done it for six years. every year we've grown incrementally. after the first two years of raising money for the library -- there's our new library -- we then it was such a great community builder that we

recently decided to keep wanting to volunteering and do it. we established a scholarship at city college for the horticultural department. and we have just gone gangbusters. we get good press and we get to see everybody's neighbor -- all our neighbors' gardens. because of the way san francisco s you get to be veuyer because usually you have to go through their garage or their house to see the gardens. and ruth gets known through the neighborhood because she's constantly peeking over fences and leaving fliers in people's mailboxes saying, do you want to be on the garden tour, and all this sort of thing. but anyway, so, we've -- just to show you how much the neighborhood has gotten to know each other, all the people in the portola, wave your hand. [cheering and applauding] >> and this is only a small representation. and six years ago i would say maybe a dozen of us knew each other, and now we know hundreds of people in our neighborhood.

and we've become so desirable from a real estate standpoint, we have multiple offers on houses and they all go for over asking. (applause) >> so, if you want to know how to do a garden tour, ruth wallace is your woman. come on up, ruth. (applause) [cheering and applauding] >> thanks. thank you. we'd like to take over the show. i just want to say it's a great honor and it's a really great event. if you haven't been to the portola garden tour, 2013 will be september 28th, mark your calendars. get your tickets early. and if i could, there are so many people involved in this, i'd like if all the gardners that have shown their gardens and the people on the committee could stand up for just a second so you could see how many of us there really are. (applause)

>> thank you very much. ♪ ♪ >> wonderful, what a great award that is. i'd like to take a moment and acknowledge supervisor scott wiener has joined us here this evening. someone who we all know. (applause) >> has done an amazing job in district 8 and making that a wonderful place to live for thousands of residents there, including my father. so, thank you very much. he thanks you. fourth generation, you know? without further ado i'd like to invite someone who was standing on the stage just last year wearing a different uniform, stunning us all with her well deserved award as a most empowering city employee, that is lucinda from the fire department to do the next award

for nerc. (applause) >> thank you, i want to say on behalf of chief hayes white who could not be here tonight nert is a [speaker not understood] with the community of san francisco. the marina navy demanded training. 23 plus years later the fire department is still working with the community on this great program. we have great training and support for what you do in your neighborhood. the neighborhood that you live in, the earthquake knows no boundaries, the earthquake does not pay attention to that. we're all going to be in this together so getting to know who you are in the portola, getting to know who you know is critical. (applause) >> the critical piece to the nert program. and that happens through neighbors building their teams and building what is going to be the network that we have together. so, thank you to the battalion 2 chief. hilbtion hickey is here on the chief's

behalf. nora is here today and donna is going to tell you why. (applause) * >> good evening. my name is dianne rivera, and i have a cold. so, i hope you'll bear with me. i'm a member of the neighborhood emergency response team, and i am so pleased, as we all are, that nora has been chosen as the exemplary leader -- for receiving the exemplary leadership award for 2012. nora is a leader in her neighborhood and we all recognize her as a leader throughout the city. as a past coordinator nora has led her team in all aspects of nert training. nora does many other things for the nert program. she has organized youth groups, namely the red cross youth group, so they can act as victims during our triage drills.

nora also participates in mini drills, outreach tabling programs, and she does continuing training. when nora is not doing this, she's working in the nert office organizing volunteers. nora is our resident ar extraordinaer. and what do i mean by that? nora has the ability through use of makeup to create life-threatening wounds on the limbs of victims. [laughter] >> so that our graduating nert class 6 triage people can see what it might really look like during a real event. nora's goals are pretty self-evident. she would like everyone to take the nert program. we are so happy, nora, for you -- where are you? you are very deserving of this award. congratulations. (applause)

>> thank you so much. i really consider myself a student, and i have so many people that are part of the nert family that have taught me so much. and i invite all of you to become member of the nert family. and thank you again. (applause) ♪ >> to introduce our next award i would like to invite someone to the stage -- i have a cold, too, i apologize. [laughter] >> sneeze with my mouth moving. i want to invite someone who i

think many people in this room know who works behind the scenes here at city hall to actually create what i think are some of the most significant physical examples of neighborhood empowerment in the city. and that, of course, is lenny denriquez. i want to invite her up here. if you walk around and see an amazing mural or amazing garden, it's a good chance she's the one that said yes to that application. so, here we go, lenny. (applause) >> good evening. i'm up here because i nominated the progress park for the best ccg nen award. i'm proud to present this award on behalf of nen to bruce and bill for their hard work and dedication for turning this vacant lot, this eyesore in their community to a beautiful green park for everyone to enjoy. through their hard work and dedication and the support of

their neighbors, they just created something tremendously beautiful. it's just amazing. and i would like -- i'm honored and i would like to invite them up to receive their award. (applause) >> thank you. [laughter] >> i want to mention that we live in one of the newest neighborhoods in san francisco, brand-new -- well, ten-year-old buildings, condos, apartments, a bunch of people who don't have a history, don't have a neighborhood. just a bunch of strangers living in proximity. and we got this idea to convert

this derelict property, this derelict piece of weed infested lot under the caltrans on ramp. and all of a sudden we've got people showing up writing checks, digging weeds, breaking rocks. so, i got a real -- we got a real experience of what it means to be in a neighborhood because we took this -- we turned into a neighborhood. that's the power of that project. so, i never anticipated it would do that. (applause) >> thank you very much. >> i just wanted to make sure everyone understood where it's located. it's located in dogpatch, small neighborhood on the bay in san francisco. (applause) >> part of district 10, supervisor cohen's district. (applause) ♪

>> certainly i'm weeding in front of my house, wait for people to show up with check. [laughter] >> get ready for that, deposit with my phone there. next is an award that i think, you know, ironically it's become one of those buzz awards for nen awards. i'll be walking down the street and have someone come up and get in my face, we're going to come back neighborhood of the year, you watch. come back neighbor of the year, it's that bcs of the nen awards. and it's my honor to introduce someone who to drone deuce this award, many of you much in the southern part of the city especially have worked side by side with and do amazing things in your neighborhood, especially along merchant corridors. that's chrisy atano of the economic work force development. (applause)

>> we're at the homestretch for awards. so, i've had the distinct pleasure of being able to work with many of the residents of the portola and got corrected many times how to pronounce that name. so, i am also a resident of silver terrace. it's been such a pleasure to work with everyone in the committee including both of the supervisors that have been part of the district. (applause) >> supervisor campos and supervisor malia cohen. i'm not going to speak too much because i know the nominater took not only is she a part of this community, but she has taken the time to really outline all the achievements of the community. but i will say on behalf of my boss, amy cohen, the portola never had a drop down on the yelp. it never had a drop down on the cdbg grant application process. and they used to have t-shirts that said best little neighborhood you never knew. so, i'm going to bring up lindy

lynetsky from dpw. (applause) >> we stole all her lines already. >> yeah, stole all my lines. you just stole another. all right. tonight is called the portola sweep, right? [cheering and applauding] >> i know there are several people here tonight who nominated the portola as the come back neighborhood of the award of the year. neighborhood of the year award. i'm sure there were several nominaters. so, i'm very humble to be able to present my nomination and the reasons why i think we deserve tonight's award. i'm a relative newcomer to the neighborhood, only 13 years, and there are many more folks who have been there for their whole lifetime. several years ago as even chrisy talked about, i first saw the portola, because portola family connections who this year is celebrating their 20th anniversary serving the

community. (applause) >> had applied for a grant and as chrisy mentioned, there was nowhere to check. you couldn't get a grant if your neighborhood didn't include it. think of it still very similar. if you look at a aaa map today or a city neighborhood map, you ain't gonna see the portola on it despite all of our victories tonight and all of our victories over the past years. this particular year has been very important to the portola. i think our biggest accomplishment was staying together. it was district -- redistricting and the government wanted to put some of us in one district and some of us in another district. and folks came out and they went to all those meetings and said, i don't care which district you put us in, but we want to stay together. the portola needs to be one. similarly, there was a road between two reservoirs in our

neighborhood that was supposed to have been -- we opened after construction and we were told no, we're going to keep it closed. and that would effectively have blocked one side of the neighborhood from the other and hundreds of people attended a community meeting and said, no, you keep that open because we can't to stay together. (applause) >> in addition -- this is definitely our year. we've won two community challenge grants. one of them was doing a beautiful mural of a stake on a caltrans -- it's the year of the snake, isn't it? of course we're going to win. (applause) >> the second is for a pocket park on boers at san bruno. it will be the first to be a pilot pocket park -- could say that several time, a pilot pocket park. [laughter] >> one of at least five improving every little corner of all the dead end streets on

san bruno avenue. * boce. we could go on and on, everything from the garden tour to the brand-new library to the new trees that get planted to the folks in mclaren park getting fixed up. we have the most amazing people, volunteers and neighbors. i am so incredibly proud to live in the portola and watch and be part of all the wonderful things we do. so, everybody here, give yourself a big hand. (applause) >> so, in addition to what mindy said, we should start getting a four-barrel that should get construction in february. (applause) >> without further ado, we would love to have everyone come he up here because i think half the people are from the portola. * but we are going to have

barbara, let's see, barbara senich and jackie moray to come up on stage and accept the award on behalf of the portola. (applause) >> nice t-shirt. thank you very much. here is a model of the t-shirt. [laughter] (applause) >> it is the best neighborhood you never heard of. both barbara and i are lifelong members of the neighborhood. i'm still in the same house that i grew up in. and come and see the new four-barrel when we timely get

it. we're the only neighborhood that doesn't have a coffee shop. what can i tell you? [laughter] (applause) >> as jackie said, you'll have to come out to the portola to see what's going on. and don't forget to notice our painted pillar there as you drive along 01

>> experiencing technical difficulty; please stand by >> here is the other linda to accept the award on behalf of the group. (applause) >> thank you. my name is linda light haiser

and i work with help mclaren park. alioto-pier here to accept the award on behalf of the founders of the organization, the real movers and shakers who couldn't be here tonight, chuck and [speaker not understood]. [cheering and applauding] >> their family is in peru, which is where [speaker not understood] hailses from. they're so disappointed they couldn't be here tonight. but the back story on this is chuck grew up in the portola. and next to mclaren park and he spent his whole childhood there. and when he and she married, they wanted the same childhood experiences chuck had had, and even better ones. so, they have spent their time working on the play grounds and all the other aspects of the park. and they worked so well and collaboratively with all the other park g